


I Hope You Have The Time Of Your Life

by Ya Boy Abe (detrimentsLament)



Category: Peak Winter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2021-01-03 17:54:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21183554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/detrimentsLament/pseuds/Ya%20Boy%20Abe
Summary: Nena makes bad decisions.





	1. O, Valencia!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Falgift](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Falgift/gifts).

Sometimes, after you lose something you had fought for, you wonder how it happened.

Sometimes, you know how it happened and you wonder if it could have gone differently.

And finally, you wonder if you could have done anything at all to make things better for the person you love.

It was a cruel joke, and it was a blessing all at once. To have the Crane Wife at your fingertips, the power to save anyone you wanted and do the impossible, and still be unable to achieve what you had hoped for in cultivating it in the first place. For all the sick people saved, for all the lives improved, for all the joy made with this Stand… it did not make up for the lost. Zemafira. December.  
At least, that is how Nena felt. She also knew what the others would probably say. Poppy would probably tell her something like, "Do you want to hold Iris?" Freddie would probably say, "He wasn't good for you anyway, good riddance." And Lia would give the least helpful response of all: "I know it's hard, but maybe you should try to move on." Of course she should. She had been trying for half a year now. And moreover, what is this about her knowing? What would she know about losing a loved one? She got hers back.  
… Maybe she was being unfair to this fictional Lia. Maybe she was being unfair to all her fictional friends. They were just trying to help, after all, and she had already discarded them enough. But their advice wasn't what she needed right now.  
Sue… Sue always gave good advice. What would he say? Probably something like, "Well, what are you going to do about it?"  
… Well? What was she going to do about it?  
She decided to start at the beginning. If things had gone differently, how would she have wanted them to go? It wasn't something as shallow as "I wanted him to love me" or "I wanted him to live." No. December, as he stood before them in all his rage and fire and brimstone and hatred nearly six months ago, had needed to die. He was too angry, too full of hate, too miserable to preserve. His pain was too great, and he had long since given up on living. So then what?  
She'd wanted to save him. From a life of pain, from a life of beatings and cruelties that she herself had only fed into. She'd wanted to protect him from a world wherein there was no kindness and nothing worth loving. To hell with her own ends. At its core, she wanted to make sure no one ever lived like that again. But it was too late for December.

… Or was it?

Or was it possible for her-- what is she saying? of course it is possible-- to save him somehow? To turn back time, to remove him from that hell before it started? Of course, removing him would only ensure a second December. Some other abducted child would be subjected to the whims of Mary and Conlee. And she would not subject an innocent to that.  
… Unless she didn't have to. There was one person Nena was quite alright with putting through all of that. Someone who was both willing and aware.  
And so, she stood and summoned Stray Heart. She took its claws in her hands and pressed her forehead to its cold fingers, and softly, she asked it for one very big miracle.


	2. What A Terrible World, What A Wonderful World

She was reborn on December 26, 1999 as a young boy. After all, Mary and Conlee would be looking for a son. His parents named him Vitaly Grachov, and he was their second living boy. The first, Zemafira, was three years old already. Zemafira had been born with a twin, who died hours after birth. The couple, Aleksi and Katya, had not intended to have any more children, but Vitaly had been something of an accident.  
It was not long before Vitaly's rather striking appearance began to manifest. One brown eye and one blue eye. A full extra set of canines. Unbelievably thick hair that would snap most ponytails. Soon enough, Vitaly was old enough to attend school, and he skipped grade after grade.  
"We don't know where he learned to read."  
"We don't know where he learned multiplication."  
"We don't know where he learned how to do physics."  
"We don't know. He just does."  
And Vitaly did not tell them. But he knew where he had learned these things. He had learned them in a previous life, and Vitaly never forgot. He could not forget, because everything in that life was precious, and it all pertained to his goal.  
Words followed him around. "Wunderkind." People whispered about his prodigy. By the time he was ten years old, he had started to catch the attention of the media, but only just enough.  
Only just enough to get the attention of the people he needed to see him.  
The decision was not made in front of him. But his father had been injured in a workplace incident, and his mother's company did not pay enough to sustain his medical bills, two adults, and two young boys. And when he heard the knock on the door and the soft but stern voice of Mary the Magician, he hid behind the corner and listened in.  
He was worth a lot of money, apparently. And they wanted him very badly. When Vitaly's mother finally conceded, she did so hollowly. There were no tears. But there wasn't joy either. Silently, Vitaly apologized to his mother. In a way, this was his fault.  
And he snuck off and hid in his room, which Mary entered only seconds later. Vitaly peeked out from behind his covers and looked at her.  
"Hello. My name is Mary," she introduced herself.  
"Hello," Vitaly replied in a small voice.  
"You are going to be coming with me now."  
"Why?"  
"I am your new mother. Your old mother sold you to me. You are going to help me achieve something great."  
"What is it?"  
"That isn't important right now. Come along." And she held out her hand expectantly. Vitaly quietly climbed out of bed. He didn't cry, or feel fear, because he had known this would happen. When he reached up and took her hand, he abruptly found himself in Singapore.


	3. Sons and Daughters

Shortly after his arrival in Meza Virs, he was taken aside and introduced to Conlee, who regarded him in silence initially. Finally, he asked, "Do you practice any of the fine arts?"  
"I do," Vitaly replied, in a tiny voice.  
"Which?"  
"I do traditional art."  
"Hmn." He leaned forward. "That will do, but you will be learning more."  
"Yes, sir."  
Conlee spoke to Mary. "So this is the boy you chose?"  
"This is. I think he will suit our purposes well enough."  
Conlee wrapped an arm around Mary's waist. Mary turned to Vitaly and addressed him. "You are never to speak of your old life again. Your name is now December Underground, and you have always been our son."  
Conlee spoke up. "You are soon to be the figurehead of the Sons and Daughters, but you answer to us. Unquestioningly. Do you understand?"  
"Yes, sir," Vitaly conceded.  
"Good. If you disobey us, there will be consequences."  
"I understand."  
"Bring Sue in," Conlee said, sitting back in his chair.  
And a fourteen-year-old Sue was brought in, sure enough. Mary turned to him. "Sue, take December back to his room."  
Sue's expression did not change, save for a small twitch of the eyebrow. Instead of asking any questions, he muttered "Okay," and he took Vitaly's hand and led him to the top floor of the headquarters. On the way, Vitaly spotted a young Claudio peeking at him from around a corner. He was crying. Vitaly looked away.


	4. Of Angels and Angles

It had been a few weeks living with the Undergrounds. The HQ was familiar to Vitaly, but living upstairs was not; there had been more than one time when he had caught himself going to the basement to sleep rather than the fifth floor. Force of habit was not kind to him.  
He sat on the floor of his room today, sketching quietly. A drawing, of someone he had yet to meet in this life but had met before. Shirley Manson. He had been on Vitaly's mind recently, and he couldn't quite place why.  
The headquarters was quiet, save for someone calling for December in the distance, and Vitaly had opened a window for some fresh air. The sunshine and ocean breeze of Singapore offered a clear head.  
It was not until the door opened and Conlee violently yanked him up by the arm, hard enough that Vitaly nearly felt it pop. Vitaly gasped and looked up at him.  
Oh, right.  
"You listen to me when I call you," Conlee growled into his ear.  
"I'm sorry. I'm still getting used to the name--" Vitaly was cut short by a searing pain across his jaw. The slap silenced him immediately.  
"I don't want your excuses. I want results."  
"I-I'm--"  
Conlee slapped him again. "I only want to hear 'yes, sir.' Or can't you even understand a simple instruction?"  
Vitaly felt very small. "Yes, sir."  
"Good. Come with me. Your mother needs to speak with you."  
Vitaly stood and quickly followed Conlee, who led him to his and Mary's room. He entered unbeckoned, unwilling to test Conlee much further. His ears still rang from the previous attacks.  
Mary glanced at Vitaly and beckoned him closer. She sat down the small book she was holding. "I need you to do something for me. It is very important."  
"What is it, mama?" Something about talking to them made him cold. He spoke hollowly.  
"You are going to Sweden." The ice never seemed to bother them. "We need you to find a man and convince him to come back--"  
"Till Lindemann. He also goes by Angel."  
Mary stared at him for a moment in baffled silence. Then, slowly, she said, "Yes. How do you know that?"  
Vitaly shrugged. "I just do." Mary and Conlee stared at him in baffled, suspicious silence. After a long moment, they turned to each other.  
"The boy was obviously eavesdropping," Conlee asserted.  
"Or maybe this is a good sign," Mary countered.  
"A sign of what?"  
"Fate. This was meant to be."  
Conlee sighed. "I'm not so sure." He eyed Vitaly suspiciously.  
Vitaly did not bat an eye. He just kept himself small and let the lie settle. Finally, Conlee broke his stare and walked out. Mary handed him a passport and tickets. "Here are your things. Come, now. I will take care of everything else you need."  
"Okay." Vitaly flipped the passport open. "December Underground," it read confidently, right beside a neatly printed photo of himself. Vitaly ran his fingers over it.  
The next morning they were on a plane headed to Stockholm. Vitaly sat quietly by the window seat, staring out at the Gobi Desert as they flew overhead. To his left was Mary, and to her left was Conlee. The ride was largely silent, but that suited Vitaly just fine. Internally, he was panicking.  
He knew very little about that original first encounter. But the objective was very clear: convince Angel to worship him. Vitaly wanted nothing to do with being worshipped, and he was far from a convincing speaker, but he knew that December had become the man's only reason for living. And Vitaly knew some things about Angel that he shouldn't.  
The plane touched down safely and Vitaly disembarked. Conlee walked behind him, watching Vitaly carefully. Vitaly had started to get used to that, and so he did not squirm like he usually did. They went to their fancy five-star apartment and Mary turned to him.  
"You need to get into the prison. Do you have a Stand?"  
"Yes."  
Mary seemed somewhat surprised by this. "What does it do?"  
"Its name is Stray Heart. It creates miracles."  
Mary stared at him for a moment longer, and then knelt down to look him in the eyes. Conlee smiled, but it was far from reassuring to Vitaly.  
"Do you think it could get you into the prison?" she asked.  
"Yes," Vitaly replied.  
"Then go," Conlee cut in, "We don't want to spend any more time here than necessary."  
Vitaly quietly stepped away and allowed Stray Heart to whisk him away, into Angel's prison cell.  
Angel was curled up in a heap, disheveled and miserable. A fairly fresh scar, half a chelsea grin, marred his otherwise inhuman beauty, and he was dressed in his prison orange, which did not suit him at all. Part of Vitaly wished he could leave Angel here to rot. Part of him knew he couldn't. And part of him felt a pang of pity for the man.  
Angel's eyes, unclouded and clear blue, widened and he sat up. He leaned away, staring at the strange looking ten-year-old who had magically materialized in his cell.  
Vitaly regarded him calmly. "It's okay. I'm not here to hurt you."  
"Are you a hallucination?" Angel asked, his voice surprisingly calm.  
"No. I am just here to talk to you."  
"Could the guards see you?"  
"They could, but they won't." Vitaly was using a Miracle to avoid detection. The cameras around Angel's cell were down, and the guards were otherwise too preoccupied by other incidents to handle it immediately. They had plenty of time.  
Angel seemed to accept that at face value. "Mmn. Well, what do you want?"  
Here goes. "I want you to join me."   
"Join you? With what, exactly?"  
"I lead the Sons and Daughters. We worship an entity known as the Crane Wife, who feeds on our suffering and prevents things like illness, disasters, and injury."  
"She heals through suffering?"  
"Yes. Are you injured? In pain?"  
Angel hesitated, and then slowly rolled up the sleeve of his jumper. Underneath was a massive, ugly dark bruise. Vitaly summoned Stray Heart, which Angel could not seem to see just yet, and allowed it to heal him. Technically, it wasn't a lie.  
Angel was silent for a moment. "And what do you want me for?"  
"I want you to die for me." He knew well what Angel's place was. He was a testing dummy for cultivation, another pair of eyes to be wasted in the attempt to summon the Crane Wife. His duty right now was to hang himself from that tree.  
Angel sucked in a sharp breath of air, and something in his eyes changed. Where fear and distrust had been seconds before, hesitant adoration could now be found.  
Vitaly was profoundly uncomfortable.  
"I accept."  
"Good. Thank you." Relief swelled in Vitaly's chest. "When you finish your prison sentence, I will come back to take you home. Don't be surprised if it ends early."  
Angel started to cry. He crawled onto the floor, kneeling deeply in front of Vitaly. "What is your name, my lord?"  
"December."


	5. Red Right Ankle

Others began to appear soon after. Mary and Conlee spared no expense in marketing their religion to celebrities and the upper class. John Lincoln and Kitty McCrea in particular did wonders for attendance. Vitaly began to notice more familiar faces around the headquarters: Ingo and Halcyon, namely.  
It eventually reached a point wherein the only people in the Headquarters were people who made Vitaly profoundly uncomfortable. The only one who didn't was Claudio, who Vitaly had attempted to befriend, but who also seemed to be pushing Vitaly away and avoiding him. There was some kind of bitter irony in being a cult leader and still being lonely.  
One thing seemed to earn him some attention from the cultists, though, and that was predictions. It started as an accident, an off-handed comment to Ingo about Caligula Syndrome, which he did not have yet. Of course, Ingo loved to gossip, and the news spread quickly. Their god in human flesh was also a prophet, and this was used exclusively to entertain. The cultists were delighted to hear their fortunes, and they started asking more mundane questions; Kitty asked if he and Lincoln would ever get together, Ingo pressed about the fate of his brand, Lincoln about his career. Of course, having been through all of this once, Vitaly could answer most of their questions. It was all in good fun, as far as he was concerned, it staved off the loneliness, and of course it would increase his credibility as a deity.  
So it was some surprise to him when Conlee called Vitaly into his room and grabbed him, yanking him over and shoving him onto the hard, wooden chair in the corner of the room. "Are you going to tell me what this is about?" Conlee asked, his voice calm despite the force.  
"I-I'm not sure what you are referring to, sir…"  
"How do you know these things?"  
"I just do, sir." Vitaly squirmed uncomfortably. Conlee's grip tightened, and Vitaly felt the bones in his wrist grind together.  
"Is that right?" Conlee let go abruptly. "Well, in that case, why don't you tell me everything you know about me? I'm curious what you think."  
"I-in regard to?" This was a trap.  
"Everything. And don't try to lie to me."  
"Um… okay." Vitaly took a deep breath. "Your name is Conlee Underground. You are 42 years of age. You are married to Mary Underground. Your Stand is called Fleetwood Mac, and it makes you move very slowly but you can project yourself into the psychic conscience of others. You had another son--"  
Conlee snarled and grabbed Vitaly by the throat, pinning him against the wall. Vitaly's eyes widened, and he started to struggle. Conlee leaned in close to his face. "You have no idea how fucked you are, child," he spat. "You know much more than you should."  
Vitaly could not do much more than fight for breath.  
"Do you know what my favorite sort of music is? It is choral. All of those voices, singing in perfect harmony. Togetherness. Listening unquestioningly to the conductor. Which is why I have been sending you to lessons. You're so out of tune."  
Vitaly's ears started to ring. He stopped fighting to preserve oxygen and stared up at his adopted father.  
"Being out of key, I can correct. But knowing the wrong pieces, I cannot tolerate." Conlee swung a punch, closed fist, into Vitaly's face. There was a painful crack and he winced. There would have been a noise of pain if he could make any noise at all. Blood began to fill his mouth.  
Conlee tossed Vitaly unceremoniously into the floor and began to kick him. Vitaly's bones, small even when fully grown, broke easily under the assault. Conlee snarled, "The only way you can be corrected is by keeping you silent. You are meant to stand there and represent something. Nothing more. So I will make sure you stay silent."  
Vitaly heard him, but he was struggling to maintain consciousness. His vision swam. Something was dropped into his hand, and he managed to peek down at it. A whip? No, not quite… a barbed cat-o-nine-tails, like the sort flagellants used in the middle ages.  
Ah.  
"If you understand, you will take that to yourself ten times right now, and ten times every day. If I tell you to do more, you will do more. Do you understand?"  
Vitaly coughed and swallowed down the blood in his mouth. He nodded and sat up, taking the weapon and cracking himself across the back with it. He felt flesh tear open.  
One.  
He did it again, from the other shoulder. He felt blood drip down his back, and he grit his teeth and trembled.  
Two.  
This was far more at once than he had ever done in his past life. His body, already sore and bruised from the beating, struggled to function after seven lashes. His back, he could feel, was a mess of blood. This was an awfully large weapon for a ten year old.  
At least it wasn't his December.  
He made it to ten just as his body collapsed under the strain, and just before passing out, he managed to look up at Conlee. "If you defy me again, I will kill you," Vitaly thought he heard, and then everything went dark.


End file.
